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Halo 2 Reader Feedback Follow-Up

Welcome to part two of our Halo 2 Reader Feedback Follow-Up feature, in which we (with a lot of help from our friends at Bungie) answer some of the emails we received after running our Halo 2 - All We Know feature. For anyone who missed Part One yesterday, we talked a bit about some of the additions to the Warthogs, as well as the play on Xbox Live. Hopefully, you read it and you're excited to see what we have for you today. If you're a gun nut, you might want to stick around.

Guns Don't Kill People, Spartans Kill People

One of the best things about the original Halo was the wide variety of weapons at your disposal. Not only were you able to slay your foes with the game's human weapons, including the versatile pistol and the devastating shotgun, you could also pick up the alien firearms dropped by dead Covenant soldiers. Halo 2 features some old favorites mixed in with new toys, and a lot of people have questions about them.

One gun that people have questions about is the new Battle Rifle that is replacing the Assault Rifle. At E3 2004, we were shown the Battle Rifle's features, including a different firing rate for when you're zoomed in than when you're in the standard view. The gun was able to fire single shots when zoomed, and quick, three shot bursts when unzoomed. It was hard to tell, though, if the firing was all manual. Eyan Stevenson asks:

I was reading some information on what you stated about the battle rifle in the upcoming game Halo 2 for Xbox. I was wondering if you can just hold the trigger (unzoomed) and it will shoot 3 rounds, pause, shoot 3 rounds, pause, shoot 3rounds or do you have to keep tapping the trigger?

When you're aiming through the scope, you can only fire single shots as fast as your finger can move, and it appears to be the same way with the quick bursts. When we asked Frank, he said:

The battle rifle fires in short bursts. It is not a fully automatic weapon, as such, it's very accurate when used correctly.

For many people, the pistol is great for use in both close quarter situations and for taking your foes out from afar. Featuring a 2X zoom mode, a quick shot or two in the head would kill your opponent immediately. We've seen screenshots of Master Chief using the pistol, but it hasn't been seen in any of the gameplay demos. Mathew wonders if it will be making an appearance in the sequel:

Will the pistol still be in Halo 2? If it is, will it be downgraded, like no zoom on it?

Alas, Halo fans, we've got a bit of bad news for you, but I think it might be better to let Frank break the news to you:

[The Pistol] will be back. It has been changed to suit dual-wielding and no longer has a scope.